Having gone without a county manager for the past seven months, Dukes County will continue on without one for yet another few weeks.

On Saturday, March 22, the county commission interviewed two finalists for the position but ultimately decided to wait until April 4 to discuss the candidates or take any action. The finalists are F. Tenney Lantz of South Dartmouth and Russell H. Smith of Aquinnah.

Clarification

John Clese, executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard YMCA, wishes to clarify his position as reported last week in a Gazette news article concerning a proposed sewer line tie-in for Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. Mr. Clese says the YMCA, through discussions with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, agrees that tying the high school to the Oak Bluffs wastewater treatment plant is the best solution to meet environmental regulations governing the high school area and the Lagoon Pond watershed.

Herring are harbingers of spring. The first of them usually appear in Island waters now. But there is serious concern about the health of the fishery across the region.

Although Massachusetts is in the third year of a moratorium on the harvesting of these small fish, the fishery has failed to rebound. Fishing prohibitions are also in place in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Also known as alewives and river herring, these anadromous fish make a pilgrimage every spring into coastal estuaries, to spawn in the freshwater pond where they themselves were created.

The Oak Bluffs Police Department is hosting a citizens police academy. The academy will give Oak Bluffs residents the opportunity to observe the day-to-day operations of their police department.

Officers will conduct training in their areas of expertise. Topics to be discussed are constitutional law, criminal law, motor vehicle law, applied patrol procedures, firearms, domestic violence, and community policing.

Truck Delivers Trout

Recreational freshwater fishing got a boost on the Vineyard on Tuesday when state officials delivered more than 1,100 healthy, hearty trout, all of them over a foot in length, to four Island ponds.

Using a special hauling truck that holds a lot of bubbling water, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife delivered 600 rainbow trout, 300 brook trout and 200 brown trout. They also delivered 40 tiger trout measuring more than 14 inches in length.

Edgartown firefighters were able to contain a quickly moving brush fire in Katama Friday morning March 21 despite strongly gusting winds that reached as high as 25 miles per hour and fanned the flames.

San Francisco is turning out the lights on the Golden Gate Bridge. Chicago is switching off Sears Tower. The Sydney Opera House will go dark.

Here, the concession booth at the Capawock Theatre in Vineyard Haven might stop the popcorn maker.

Martha’s Vineyard is David in a list of Goliath locations — from Bangkok to Miami — participating in Earth Hour, a global energy conservation event taking place tomorrow night, Saturday, March 29, from 8 to 9 p.m.

It was 35 years ago that Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws, about a great white shark that terrorizes a resort town, was first published, starting a run of 44 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and inspiring the Steven Spielberg film of the same name, filmed off the shores of Martha’s Vineyard.

This week the novelist’s widow, Wendy Benchley, made a visit to the Oak Bluffs selectmen to take aim at what has become, in recent years, a focal point in the battle over shark conservation: the annual Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament.

JOHN S. ALLEY

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net)

The weekend weather was anything but springlike. But spring flowers are making an appearance in any event. The days are getting longer and the sun stronger. Soon, we trust, it will warm up and spring will burst upon us.

Another sure sign of spring was the stocking of the Mill Pond with trout on Tuesday. We can expect kids and their fathers will be fishing this weekend.

High Honors

Headmaster Jay Stroud of Tabor Academy has named Edgartown student Alex Nugent, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Nugent, to the high honors list for the first semester of the 2007-2008 academic year.